Viking Yachts uncovers real-time production costs, cuts warranty expenses by 35 percent with ERP capabilities from Infor
Atlanta, GA — June 29, 2006 —L-boat builder Viking Yachts this week announced that it will implement Infor's most enterprise resource planning (ERP) technology. Viking Yachts has both reduced costs and improved customer satisfaction dramatically with its current Infor solutions and will build on its results to date with even leaner production methods.
Viking Yachts, a $250 million privately held company, is adopting Infor's ERP SyteLine 7 technology to extend the remarkable results it has gained from Infor SyteLine 6. The company, which manufactures yachts ranging from 45 to 74 feet long and priced as high as $4 million, began using Infor SyteLine in 2001 to control operations at its production facility in New Gretna, N.J., and its customer-exclusive marina and service center in Riviera Beach, Fla.
Viking employs Infor SyteLine, part of Infor's Manufacturing Essentials suite of solutions for discrete manufacturers, to manage product configuration, inventory control, production, procurement, and financial management, while it uses Infor's Field Service-Plus (FSPLUS) software for service history, scheduling and execution. With Infor SyteLine 7, Viking will take advantage of new functionality for controlling operations in multiple sites.
With its Infor ERP solution, Viking has achieved major improvements in its operations. Islands of IT programs and information have been eliminated, now that everyone throughout the organization uses SyteLine for all functional areas. All the information is processed the same way and is available to everyone based on access levels, explained John Kasinski, vice president of finance for Viking Yachts.
Options and wording on work orders have been standardized. Every option has the same name, description and number every time. We feel that this standardization has decreased the time our supervisors spent chasing paper and following up on questions by about 40 percent, Kasinski said.
Costing has become more accurate. Managers now can review real-time costing for any boat in the manufacturing process or in the field, improving profitability-based decision-making relating to its product line. For example, Kasinski recounted, Once we were able to accurately capture the costs through SyteLine, we were disappointed in the low margins on our 43-foot product line. We discontinued that product and replaced it with a newly-designed 45-footer that became more profitable and is still in production today.
Customer satisfaction has also improved as a result of coupling SyteLine with FSPLUS software that allows Viking Yachts to capture every repair and incident by type. Top field-service issues can be reviewed by both cost and frequency to get at root causes quickly and to handle repairs rapidly. Warranty costs have plummeted 35 percent as a result.
Viking has expanded to 15 business units, all using SyteLine. All business units operate in the same exact way, and the financial reporting is consistently the same from one site to the next, Kasinski reports, resulting in more accurate and timely reporting.
Kasinski estimated that Viking Yachts enjoyed a full return on its investment in less than one year, with higher profitability resulting from lower costs for warranty, production and administrative work, as well as from improved brand loyalty and faster decision-making.
